AppKit Release Notes for macOS Ventura 13

Update your apps to use new features, and test your apps against API changes.

Overview

AppKit in macOS Ventura 13 includes new features, as well as API changes and deprecations.

Color wells have a modernized appearance and two new styles in macOS 13. See the new colorWellStyle property and associated NSColorWell.Style type for more information on configuring a color well’s style.
The two new color well styles, NSColorWell.Style.minimal and NSColorWell.Style.expanded, offer a pull-down capability. By default, interacting with the well displays a popover with a palette of color choices for quick picking. Applications can customize this interaction using the new pulldownTarget and pulldownAction properties.
Borderless color wells will be deprecated in a future release. The isBordered property has been annotated as such.

macOS 13 introduces a new type of control: NSComboButton. NSComboButton provides the functionality of a pull-down menu along with a primary action.
NSComboButton is configurable with two styles, NSComboButton.Style.split and NSComboButton.Style.unified. Refer to the class documentation for guidance on the appearance and behavior of each case.

The initWithContentsOfURL initializer (deprecated since 10.8) now throws an assertion. Use init(nibNamed:bundle:) instead.

On macOS 13 and higher, changing the autosaveName property from one value to another will automatically persist autosave data for the old value before changing to the new value. Setting autosaveName to nil removes the persistence data for the previously set autosaveName.
NSTableView and NSOutlineView now automatically estimate row heights for view-based table views whose delegates implement tableView(_:heightOfRow:) and provide variable row heights. This provides performance improvements for table views with large numbers of rows by reducing the frequency of the calls to tableView(_:heightOfRow:).

For cell-based table views, checking Autosave Column Information in Interface Builder now correctly persists column information for columns that have automatic column identifiers.
For apps linked against the macOS 13 SDK, NSTableRowView and subclasses that override drawSeparator(in:) now draw their separators correctly, even when displayed as floating group rows.

Placing an NSToolbarItem item taller than the toolbar height is not supported and will result in clipping. When drawing a custom badge, use alignmentRectInsets of the control to describe where the button is and draw within the inset area.